


Return

by asexualshepard



Series: Broken Scopes [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Character Death, Character Development, F/M, M/M, Original Character(s), Personal Growth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 14:40:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5501186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asexualshepard/pseuds/asexualshepard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short piece exploring the few times Ethan O'Connell--the Sole Survivor of Vault 111--returns to the place he watched his family destroyed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Return

Five months Ethan’s been working oxygen back into his muscles, relearning how to walk, only for any progress he’s made to vanish the second the vault door is open. He almost falls—almost stumbles over skeletons in suits similar to the one he’d thrown out long, long ago. His hands are enveloped in tremors quicker than expected, the muscles in his legs tighten around the bones supporting them, and, somehow, he walks.

The walls seem larger than they are, moving in towards him as he paces slowly through the unfamiliar halls he barely remembers. Breathing isn’t an option anymore. His lungs try to fill themselves, but all they receive is ice. Ice and dry and nothing.

How long he wanders, he isn’t sure. His Pip-Boy is silenced, the only sound filling the space that of his own empty breaths and the scuffle of mutated animals creeping through the rooms, behind his back. He thinks about tuning the radio once or twice—music, or sound in general, might help calm his thoughts—but he doesn’t. The space, the air around him is wrong. Music would be, as well.

That said, he stumbles upon the pods with nothing but the cold hum of machinery at his heels.  It’s a broken sound—as broken as his hands, his heart which sits on one of his palms, waiting. It’s with soft beats that he thinks, perhaps, he should just turn around and leave. Go back the way he came and never return. He’s going to hurt himself, which shouldn’t be something he wants, shouldn’t be something he willingly advances towards.

But he does.

As he cautiously takes the steps to stand between boxes of frozen friends and acquaintances, his heart shouts. It twists in his hand, telling him to stop, because if he doesn’t he’s going to fall again, and falling is painful. But his feet carry him forward, his mouth goes dry.

And then he sees her.

She hasn’t moved. Her arms still drape across her body, her chin still dips towards her shoulder, eyes still open. Shaking fingers lift the handle he now knows will open the door of the pod. Five months ago, he’d been none the wiser, too wrapped up in the curling, twisting of his insides to make sense of anything. Five months ago, his fingernails had loosened themselves on the rubber seal of the door.

Now, that door lifts, cool air flooding into the passageway, ice clinging to the inside of the glass. And he’s fighting the need to fall to his knees, to let the rest of him break. God, he wants to. He wants to sit at her side and stay there, to wait for her to come back. As tears build at the corners of his eyes, he almost does.

But he doesn’t. He bites his lips, cries, but he doesn’t sit. Because the moment he sits is the moment he gives up, and that’s something he can’t do. Not yet. Not until he finds Shaun.

So he stands as he says the things he wants to, the things that had brought him up from Sanctuary, that had carried him through the empty, broken hallways of the vault. He breathes shuddered apologies and soft promises.

“I’ll find him, Nora. I swear to _God_ , I’ll _find him_.”

And he says it over, and over, and over again. Until his throat is raw and his eyes ache, and the desire to sit is stronger than when he arrived. He’s standing, but he’s still broken, and pieces of him are chipping off and melding with the dried flecks of blood on the floor beneath his feet.

The last thing he does is reach out and take her hand. It still fits in his. Not perfectly— they were never perfect. But it fits, and his legs almost give out. She’s so cold. Her skin bites him in a way he’s not used to, in a way he wants to pretend doesn’t exist. She’d been so warm before. He remembers holding her at their wedding, her palm pressed to his as they danced, her toes on the tops of his feet. Her smile, laugh, the careful way she cradled him—just as she did Shaun—when he woke up screaming.

Not anymore, not when she’s cold. Not for five months. The only thing he can do is take her ring, cradle it in the same hand as his heart, and leave.

So he does.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly expect, like, no one to read this. It's more for me than anyone else. 
> 
> That said, if you did read it, thank you for your time. I really hope you at least somewhat enjoyed it, despite it's, um, sad nature, I suppose. :)


End file.
